INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
US army soldiers stand guard at the truce village of Panmunjom.SEOUL: North and South Korea held military talks on Tuesday amid rising
tensions after the United States detected renewed activity at a North Korean missile factory.The meeting, their second since June, held in
the border village of Panmunjom in the demilitarised zone (DMZ), was designed to follow on from an inter-Korean summit in April at which
leaders of the two Koreas agreed to defuse tensions and halt "all hostile acts."Kim Do-gyun, the South's chief negotiator who is in charge
of North Korea policy at the defence ministry, told reporters before leaving for the DMZ that he would make efforts to craft "substantive"
measures to ease tensions and build trust.South Korea's defence ministry said last week it plans to reduce guard posts and equipment along
the heavily fortified border as an initial step to implement the agreement.On Monday, a senior U.S
official told Reuters that U.S
spy satellites had detected renewed activity at the North Korean factory that produced the country's first intercontinental ballistic
missiles capable of reaching the United States.U.S
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that North Korea was continuing to produce fuel for nuclear bombs despite the country's leader
Kim Jong Un vowing to work toward denuclearisation during a summit with U.S
President Donald Trump in Singapore last month.Trump declared soon afterward that North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat, but
Pyongyang has offered no details as to how it might go about denuclearisation and subsequent talks have not gone smoothly.The North's state
media has in recent days chastised the South for failing to swiftly move to improve inter-Korean relations while only caring about the view
of the United States calling for a thorough enforcement of sanctions.The Rodong Sinmun, North Korea's official party newspaper, on Tuesday
accused Seoul of "wasting time" waiting for sanctions to be lifted only after denuclearisation is completed, without "taking a single
action" on its own.It called for steps to facilitate a restart of the previously jointly-run but now closed programmes, such as the Kaesong
Industrial Complex and tours to the North's Mount Kumgang resort.North Korea's propaganda website Uriminjokkiri also criticised South Korea
for its stance of keeping sanctions on Tuesday, saying "sanctions and conversation cannot exist side by side."(Reporting by Joyce Lee and
Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)© Thomson Reuters 2018(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by
TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
